Contents Editorial ....................................................................................................................................................... 1 Lecture ........................................................................................................................................................ 5 What is an Anthropologist? René Devisch ....................................................................................................................................... 5 Reactions to René Devisch ....................................................................................................................... 12 1. Towards an Ethic of the Intercultural Polylogue The Path of an Anthropologist Déogratias Mbonyinkebe Sebahire ................................................................................................... 12 A Word About René Devisch Fabien Eboussi Boulaga ................................................................................................................... 14 Existential Dilemmas of a North Atlantic Anthropologist in the Production of Relevant Africanist Knowledge Wim van Binsbergen .......................................................................................................................... 15 A Tribute to René Devisch Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja................................................................................................................ 20 The Anthropologist in Four Phases Noël Obotela Rashidi, ....................................................................................................................... 21 2. Towards a Reappropriation of Local Knowledge and Practices Anthropology Without Borders André Yoka Lye,................................................................................................................................. 23 An Africanist in Search of a New Epistemological Framework Dimomfu Lapika ................................................................................................................................ 24 3. Towards an Intercultural Emancipation What does it Mean to be Human in an Increasingly Dehumanised World? Jacques Depelchin ............................................................................................................................ 27 What is an Anthropologist? Lansana Keita ................................................................................................................................... 30 Letter to René Devisch: Kata Nomon Valentin Y. Mudimbe.......................................................................................................................... 31 Response .................................................................................................................................................... 50 ‘The Shared Borderspace’, a Rejoinder René Devisch ..................................................................................................................................... 50 Also in this Issue French Policy on Immigration and Co-Development in Light of the Dakar Speech Ange Bergson and Lendja Ngnemzué, ............................................................................................... 62 Négritude and Postcolonialism: The Dakar Satire, or the Ideological Revenge of the West Nkolo Foé .......................................................................................................................................... 68 CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 1 & 2, 2008 Page 1 Editorial his issue of the CODESRIA Bulletin revisits a to assert its independent scholarly authority, and thus postcolonial turn in anthropology and Africa. redefines the flow of North–South intellectual dependence T Anthropology is a dynamic and plural discipline, in into one of intercontinental equality. constant dialogue with itself, related disciplines, and the In his reply to the critical reflections expressed in the continuity and innovation, vitality and negotiation of evolving commentaries on his academic lecture, Devisch situates his local and imported forms of social and cultural reality in Africa. anthropological endeavour in the ‘shared borderspace’ that may It is in recognition of this that CODESRIA invited ten scholars develop between a transcontinental plurality of lifeworlds, of Africa – in the majority from Africa – to comment on the traditions of thought and scientific disciplines. Very much aware position of the postcolonial anthropologist. These scholars in of the trauma of the colonial presence and intrusion also in its the main take as a point of departure the work of Professor René present disguises, and the gnawing sense of moral debt Devisch. A European anthropologist who applied his contracted by his generation of social scientists who came to understanding of local Congolese lifeworlds to investigate Africa in the early days of independence, he is yet able to feel much-overlooked aspects of his native Belgium and the habitus revalidated by the reciprocal interpersonal loyalty that his many of North Atlantic social scientists, Devisch has displayed an African hosts, co-students or colleagues have extended to him impressive ability to look at local practices through a bifocal over the years. He invites us to reflect on contemporary lens. This in turn has led to a re-evaluation in academia of local anthropology’s intercultural commitment to a bifocal gaze and knowledge practices and systems, and their complementarity to multisided intercultural discourse, to the cross-pollination in with regard to universal sciences. African academia between universal sciences and local On the occasion of the award of an honorary doctorate granted knowledge systems (as was suggested in the Special Issue on him by the University of Kinshasa in April 2007 (only the tenth ‘All knowledge is first of all local knowledge’, Africa such award in the history of that university), Professor Devisch Development/Afrique et développement 30.3, 2005, ed. reflected in his academic address on the very topic ‘What is an Theophilus Okere, Chukwudi Anthony Njoku and René Devisch), anthropologist?’ He looked back at his studies of philosophy and finally to the blind spots in Western-derived social science. and anthropology in Kinshasa – deeply marked by the sociopolitical and intercivilisational contestations of Négritude The Bifocality and Intercultural Dialogue at the and African philosophy that were prevalent at the time. From Core of the Anthropological Endeavour these he drew inspiration for his anthropological endeavours A profound respect for diverse ways of life, for plural gender- after the 1970s, with the aim of contributing to the decolonisation specific procedures of signification, as well as a capacity for of anthropology and the anthropologist in order to understand empathy and unprejudiced dialogue, together constitute, we the particular sociocultural contexts from within the rationale believe, the golden thread in extended fieldwork along which and dynamics of the communities involved. Over the years, his the anthropologist can investigate groups or networks and the primary research interests focused on the Yaka in rural lifeworld from within. Such genuine intersubjectivity involves southwestern Democratic Republic of Congo and suburban seeing local realities primarily from the perspective and in terms Kinshasa. Additionally, he benefited from the hospitality of of the communities concerned. And yet there remains a paradox, diverse subaltern communities, both rural and suburban, for since researchers subsequently represent their insights largely research stays in his home country Belgium, in southern Ethiopia in the academic traditions of persuasion derived from Eurocentric and Tunisia, and from supervision of African and European modernity. As the late Archie Mafeje observed, a core question doctoral students during their anthropological fieldwork in eight for the anthropologist is how much does his or her report remain African countries. More recently, Devisch and his colleague a form of bordercrossing. There is the constant risk of exoticising, Filip De Boeck acted as promoters of the honorary doctorates if not othering, the locals – a risk derived at least in part from the that their alma mater, the Catholic University of Leuven, granted Western scholarly tradition of the book and of epistemological two African scholars, Jean-Marc Ela in 1999 and Valentin distancing that, as Mafeje suggests, exclude a multi-value logic Mudimbe in 2006. in favour of subject–object dualities. One can gauge some of the significance of the recognition by One mainstream discourse in social science continues blithely the University of Kinshasa from the remarks of the Dutch to privilege Enlightenment rationality, the autonomous self and anthropologist, Wim van Binsbergen: Human Rights – this last understood in the individualistic terms of contemporary Western ideology – promoting itself as the When, nearly half a century after the end of colonial rule, an universal project and the bearer of progress to all nations. It is African university grants an honorary degree to a prominent also this perspective that, in the transatlantic mass media and researcher from the former colonising country, this is a much of Western-derived academic discourse, deploys in significant step in the global liberation of African difference ethnocentric fashion its projected phantasms with regard to the (to paraphrase Mudimbe’s 1997 expression). The African specialist